Man Saves Runner Having A Heart Attack, And Finds Out They’re From The Same City

Running is a healthy activity and is never linked to any problems or diseases. That’s why while we are running, some kind of health problem happening is the last thing on our mind. But, sadly, that is what happened last month, April 2019 to the Canadian Tom Reddon. Tom was out for a run in Florida when he felt some kind of chest pain. Soon after, he collapsed close to the Indian Rocks Beach in Florida. Lucky for Tom, there were people that found him quickly and were willing to help him, and it turned out that the people that helped Tom were from his hometown. What a coincidence!

Not the Ordinary Run with a Friend

Tom and his friend, Bernie Arseneau, decided to go out for a run on April 4th, 2019, and it started off just like any other time they were running. The two friends were both from Fredericton, New Brunswick, and they were running together almost every day. They had so much fun exercising together, and the 4th of April seemed to go that route until the day took a wrong turn for them, and it all started going downhill for one of them. On this beautiful day, Tom and his friend decided to run 5 kilometers. But, halfway through their run, the two friends’ day took a sudden turn. They stopped, and tom suggested to Bernie that they should take a selfie before running the 2.5km. Back to the place where they started running. Just a couple of seconds after taking the selfie, as Bernie was putting his phone away, he heard his friend, Tom, say “Oh Bernie.”

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Bernie didn’t know what happened, and he turned around in order to ask his friend what’s happening. But, he noticed that his friend collapsed down on the ground. He was shocked and didn’t know what has happened. Luckily, two women got to the location and saw that Tom was down, so one of the women called 911 in order to call the ambulance, and the other went searching for someone to help them. The woman that was looking for help found Sandy MacNeill, this guy knew how to perform CPR, and he performed it on Tom before the ambulance has arrived.

He Never Thought CPR Would be Useful to Him

Sandy started performing CPR as soon as he saw Tom. He was doing mouth to mouth resuscitation as well as chest compressions. MacNeil has learned how to do this in a CPR course that he went on a couple of years ago, Sandy admitted that he didn’t think he would need this ever. Despite the fact that Sandy never performed this on a real human in a real-life situation, he didn’t think about it, because he didn’t have a lot of time on his hands. Sandy stated that once he got to Tom, he had already lost his pulse, so once he made sure that somebody called the ambulance he started with the CPR and performed it until he heard the ambulance truck was near.

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He remembers how it all happened, and he said that he thinks that it took them forever to get there, but that was only because of the rush of adrenaline. Once the ambulance arrived at the location, they quickly resuscitated Tom’s heart.

He was his Neighbor

MacNeill was performing CPR on Tom, but he had never thought that he was from his hometown of Fredericton. But, while he was performing the CPR, Bernie called Tom’s wife, and Sandy overheard the phone number’s area code, and he recognized that this was his hometown’s area code. He quickly realized that this wasn’t a stranger he was saving. In fact, he realized that they could be living in the same neighborhood.

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When the ambulance arrived, they took him straight into the hospital for complicated surgery. The success rate of Tom’s operation is not that high, but somehow he managed to escape death and survive the heart attack. A couple of days after the surgery, Tom woke up and was happy to see everybody, later that day he commented on how lucky he was. Tom couldn’t wait to meet the man that saved his life, because, without his CPR, nobody knows if Tom could survive. And, after the operation, they finally met in a less stressful situation than before. They both agreed that once they get back in their hometown, they will meet again for a beer or two.

Social Media Madness

After his problem was solved, Tom’s story started spreading all over social media. He too entered the social media madness, and not too long after it was posted his story went viral. There are tons of comments on the importance of first aid education, and others are wishing Tom fast recuperation from the surgery.